Thanks for following up on the lawyer's assertion, Sydney.

Sydney, thank you for this discussion of current practice and current scientific understanding. But this finding is from the 80s; what do we know about Oregon's practices at that time?

This is a very serious allegation, and it may well be that Murray is losing his ability to provide leadership in this city in light of this slow avalanche of stories about his past--regardless of whether he's done anything wrong. But there are plenty of reasons not to consider the Oregon finding to be particularly strong evidence of anything, without further context. Did Murray have an opportunity to dispute the finding, or did this come down to the opinion of a single social worker? Was this particular social worker homophobic (which would be unsurprising given the time)? Did Oregon have strong policies and training in place to ensure that gay individuals were not unfairly targeted as "abusive" merely for being openly gay around children?

The level of evidence required for this finding is incredibly low--simply a "reason to believe". Not just lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt" (required for a criminal conviction), but below a "preponderance of evidence" (AKA the "more likely than not" standard, which is what is today required for a finding of abuse in Washington). Even under a preponderance standard, we are saying we are ok being wrong 49% of the time. Under a "reason to believe" standard, it's more like we're ok being wrong 80% or maybe even 90% of the time. A rason to look more into it, to be sure. So will someone report on what exactly he is accused of having done, and what evidence there is to support that allegation--instead of passing that vital fact-finding role off on a 30 year-old unreviewable bureaucratic hunch?

Journalists following up makes me really happy. Thanks.

I'm not a lawyer, but the internet tells me that in one context, "reasonable cause" is a lower standard than "preponderance of evidence". Similar to "reasonable suspicion", which cops use to pull over who they like.
https://www.zuckermanlaw.com/sp_faq/reas…

Which is to say, if the standard is "reasonable cause", that would mean they do bias toward believing allegations. "Preponderance of evidence" takes 51% sure, "reasonable cause" only takes something under that -- 20% or something. No?

(@2 please reread previous stories about what Simpson said. He was pretty clear and to me pretty believable.)

Every scrap of real evidence so far proves that the accusers are lying and doing a piss poor job of it. Murray is innocent.

@2 - I understand the concern for not falsely accusing individuals, especially in cities and states where gay panic rides shotgun. This is not an unfounded concern but you're effectively placing the standard of proof for sexual abuse on the victims, which in allegations like these - are children. So, how do you do that? You can attempt to find physical evidence but not all sexual abuse results in physical evidence. You can attempt to get statements from a child or a person not of majority age but this relies on this child/person to have the language to describe what happened to them, to be untraumatized enough to be able to speak about this, to be not in a situation where speaking out against their abuser puts them in a more dangerous situation, and to not feel threatened by their subsequent removal from that environment which may be otherwise (and in sick irony) the most stable situation they've been in. You keep talking about evidence and fact finding which are both very important things in these allegations but I'd caution that we're talking about a situation where the victims themselves are not adults and don't have the language or nuance to necessarily deliver evidence just as the adults would like it to be.

So then, in lacking hard and satisfying proof - do adults in the position of having to decide to keep abuse victims in environments in which more abuse can happen because a threshold was not met while knowing that you're dealing with individuals on the victim side who can't respond like a rational adult. My concern is that when we get too exacting and demanding about the nature of proof in a situation where one side of those equation cannot by virtue of maturity and age or circumstance provide that standard - we provide a certain amount of cover for predators to continue to operate. There's just no way that this can be exact, unfortunately.

Legally speaking, the Murray's lawyer is correct. We consider criminal "guilt" to be proven only when the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is met. Beyond a reasonable doubt means that we (supposedly) err significantly on the side of believing the accused.

Civil lawsuits are usually decided by a "preponderance of the evidence." Preponderance of the evidence means, basically, more than 50% likelihood. So preponderance of the evidence essentially means we don't error to either side (except that the accused wins a dead tie, so small err to the side of the accused).

"Reasonable cause" means exactly what it sounds like. It is akin to probable cause and is a substantially lower burden for the state and it means there is supposed to be a significant err to the side of the accuser.

The statistics and everything are nice context, but they don't change the thing the investigator actually found, which is only that the story was reasonable/plausible, not that it was even more likely than not.

And there is another issue here too, which is that Murray wasn't a parent. It is one thing to say that a foster parent should be excluded from future foster kids--it is a totally different thing to terminate a parents parental rights. That has all kinds of legal and constitutional implications that terminating a foster parent doesn't.

None of that is to say that the statistics are irrelevant or that it isn't really problematic to the Murray is innocent argument, but it is simply false to imply that Murray's lawyer misrepresented the legal standard at issue. It does in fact err to the side of the accuser. Which is why the investigator's findings didn't lead to an indictment, arrest, or prosecution.